


Becoming

by miss_grey



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Extended Metaphors, F/F, F/M, Hell, M/M, Meta, Mythology - Freeform, Underworld, Violence, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-06-02 22:57:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6586183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_grey/pseuds/miss_grey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My meta and musings during my Walking Dead re-watch.  Or: WHY I LOVE THE WALKING DEAD SO MUCH.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1x01: The Horror of a Silent World

 

 

It begins with silence, and an eerie trek through an abandoned world.

The first words spoken are a plea to a child that is already dead, before Rick mournfully, mercifully blows her brains out.

The Walking Dead is all about becoming, transformation.  It’s about letting go of who we were, who we _thought_ we were, and embracing who we ARE.

 

In 1x01 we see the world through the eyes of Rick Grimes.  A Rick Grimes that is in the process of being reborn to a world that is dying.  We get a glimpse of who he used to be, just in time to see him change.

1x01 is all about Rebirth, and Mercy.

Rick Grimes is innocent, naïve, and full of mercy.  He is the HERO of this story—we know because he is determined to be the GOOD GUY.  But he’s also a man out of time, displaced, still clinging to the morality and reality of life before the Turn because he hadn’t been awake to witness its demise.  Which is why 1x01 is truly horrifying.  We see this new world through Rick’s eyes.  It’s jarring and surreal.  It’s like walking into a nightmare, silent except for your own voice and the moans of the dead.

The hospital is close and dark, and so Rick creates his own light, in the form of matches, to guide him.  He emerges, finally, into the light of day outside of the hospital.  He’s a new man.  The world has ended, and he’s been reborn.

He walks through the land of the dead, seemingly the last man alive on earth.  He wakes to the failure of the government, of the military, of the human race itself.  He wakes to destruction.  He wakes to a world where nothing is as it seems, and who a person used to be doesn’t matter anymore.

We see him desperate, searching, confronted by horrors over and over, and yet he’s still so willing to trust, and so full of mercy.  Rick Grimes is a good man.  It always fills me with sadness, excitement, and a sense of foreboding to know that this man will be systematically broken down by circumstance, and then rebuilt into something else.  And yet, he will still be, at the core, Rick Grimes.

He starts this new life alone.  Everything has been taken from him.  He is on a quest to find his family and regain the world he knew.  After that, he has to learn how to keep it.

If not for the mercy of Morgan, we would have had a vastly different story.

And Morgan, too, is tested.  How horrifying must it have been to gaze at the walking dead, and try to determine how much of who they were might be left?  He knows he has to say goodbye to his dead wife, but he’s not ready.  Not yet.

 

We see Rick shower in 1x01.  As the water washes over him, he is baptized into this new life.

Rick has no idea how far gone the world is.  He still wants to save it.  He doesn’t yet know that it can’t be saved.  It has changed irrevocably, just like everyone in it.

And Carl is so young, so small, so innocent.  But this is HIS world, the world he inherited.  And he will change along with it.

They’re in a crucible.  They are all transforming.

Can any of them be blamed for what they become, for what the world makes of them?

We can’t always control what happens to us, but we always get a choice on how we react to it.

Every single one of these characters will choose what they become.

 

Nearly every kill is an act of mercy.  Each bullet delivered reverently, in order to pay respects to the humanity that once existed within the body.  Each bullet is a farewell to the old world, and a step toward the new one.

Rick rides a horse into the city, down an empty lane.  On the other side, the road is packed with abandoned cars.  This shows us more clearly than anything else the juxtaposition of worlds.  This is not any place that we recognize.  To think that it is would mean death.

Rick rides into a Hell that he doesn’t understand, upon the back of the first of many sacrifices.  It is this gift of flesh that buys Rick some time, but it’s borrowed time, and again, it is only the mercy of strangers that saves him.

Like any Hell, the only way out is through, and thus we begin the descent.


	2. 1x02: Your Friendly Underworld Guide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The others don't give Glenn nearly enough credit.

 

 

The Walking Dead is about community, about family.  Episode 1x02 shows us what happens when we have community, and what happens when we don’t.

At the camp, we see what appears to be a community of survivors working together.  Except, things are not as they appear, and the group isn’t really unified.  The building of community is a process, and the one they’re trying to build isn’t solid, because they don’t really trust each other yet.  They’re not honest with themselves, or with each other. 

We see this with Shane and Lori.  If they weren’t ashamed of what they were doing, they wouldn’t have kept their affair a secret.  But neither of them is fully willing to leave the old world behind, and that will be their downfall.

We also see this struggle with community in the group at the department store.  Here, we begin to see what survival really looks like.  It means working with people of all kinds, maybe even ones you hate, as in the case of Merle Dixon and T-Dog.  But for Merle, dominance and racial hatred is more important to him than the practicalities of working with people he doesn’t like in order to survive.  He’s not willing to let the old world go, either, and it determines what happens to him for a long time afterward.

He didn’t count on Rick. 

When Rick pulls the gun on Merle, Merle tells him “You wouldn’t.  You’re a cop.”

And Rick replies: “All I am anymore is a man looking for his wife and son.  Anyone who gets in the way of that is gonna lose.”

Already we see Rick changing, adapting to the new rules of the world.  Within the space of two episodes, already we see his transformation. 

Later, he finds Andrea looking at a necklace, and he says: “Why not take it?”

Andrea replies: “There’s a cop staring at me.”  Then, “Would it be considered looting?”

Rick looks at her a moment, then says: “I don’t think those rules apply anymore.  Do you?”

Rick starts letting go of the old world, but he does it in fits and starts.  He’s not willing to admit it’s dead yet—he still has hope that it can be saved, that humanity will still triumph.  That’s why, later, when they chop up a Walker in order to disguise themselves, he reads the name of the man the Walker used to be, “Wayne Dunlap,” and he acknowledges the man’s humanity and his unknowing sacrifice.

The Walking Dead is all about sacrifices.  The ones we’re willing to make, and the ones that get made for us.

Wayne Dunlap was a necessary sacrifice.  The road through Hell is a dark and dangerous one, and the angry spirits must be appeased.  Freedom, survival, must be paid for, traded for.  Nothing in this world is free.  And so Merle Dixon also becomes a sacrifice.

The choice to remain behind wasn’t his, his he _does_ have his own choice to make.  When T-Dog dropped the key, he chained the door shut behind him, to give Merle a chance, or at least to buy him some time.  So the choice facing Merle is this: just what is _he_ willing to sacrifice in order to survive?

 

The Walking Dead is Rick’s descent into Hell.  He’s on a journey _through,_ in order to make it _out._ We see this acknowledged when Morales comments: “You’re not Atlanta PD.  Where you from?”

And Rick replies “Up the road a ways.”  The man from nowhere, the man from another world, the man who is on his way _down._

But as with any trek through Hell, Rick needs a guide.  And he gets this guide in the form of Glenn Rhee.

Glenn is the Guide through the Underworld.  He is the voice that calls to Rick when all looks like it is lost.  He’s the one who knows his way around the labyrinth that is the City of the Dead.  He’s quick, and quiet, and honest.  Glenn saves Rick by telling him how to get out of the tank, and by giving him directions to safety. 

Glenn is the one who descends into the tunnels.  When it comes to knowing the ways in and out of the City of the Dead, Glenn is the boss.

It is not a coincidence that it is Glenn and Rick that dress like the dead in order to move among them.  They’re in the in-between.  Glenn is liminal by nature.  He’s part of the living, but he has the amazing ability to move among the dead without being noticed.  The others don’t give him nearly enough credit.

It is not surprising, then, that Glenn is the one that creates the distraction that the others need to escape.  In the driver’s seat of a bright red sports car, Glenn guides the others out of the city and heralds a return, with the blasting of car-alarm trumpets, to the world of the living, with the hordes of the dead nipping at their feet.

Glenn is the one who guides Rick back to his old family, and introduces him to his new one.


	3. 1x03: Who We Think We Are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They haven't come into the light yet.

 

 

 

Rick stares at a fire, haunted and disoriented, and says “I felt like I’d been ripped out of my life and put somewhere else.”

 

In this episode, Dale says that words are paltry things, that they fall short of what we really try to convey. 

So much of The Walking Dead is about people’s actions, not their words.  The choices they make.  Their words are only a shadow of their deeds, and they can be misleading.

Along the same vein, our first introductions to some of the characters are also misleading.  They are flat, one-dimensional renderings of people who are so much more complex than what we’re originally shown. 

The characters we see in this episode are mostly shadows of themselves—some of them just emerging into the light, others a long way off.

Our first impression of Merle Dixon was that he was a violent racist, misogynist, and potential murderer.  It was just one side of Merle, but it was the side we (and Rick) were first shown.

Episode 1x03 opens with Merle on the roof, delirious and desperate.  The Walkers are crowding in on the door, and he knows that death is not far behind.  He appeals to Jesus for help in a moment of panic, and we see Merle show weakness, just for a moment.  In this moment, we get a glimpse of another man, one who felt abandoned by God in his time of need, and yet still managed to hold onto his faith in a higher power.  But after this single moment of appeal, Merle snarls “I never begged you before, I ain’t gonna beg you now.”  And this is where we see yet another face of Merle, the one who reaches for his own salvation in the form of a handsaw.  The Merle who is willing to sacrifice his own hand in order to escape from the hungry dead, in defiance of God and everyone else who left him for dead.

In our introduction to Dale, he asserts himself as the voice of reason, but we know that later he can also be _un_ reasonable.

We see Carol, meek.  A caretaker.  Washing clothes, and getting beat by her husband.  She thinks she is weak, and so we think she is weak.  She isn’t.

Community is important.  We see the reunion of Andrea and her sister, Morales and his family, Rick with Lori and Carl.  And later, we see the community band together when a Walker arrives on the mountain, tearing at the body of a deer. All of the men take turns hitting it, working as a community to end the threat.  Of course, it’s a show, and they’re not really successful.  But the stage here is not set to demonstrate whether or not these men can protect their group—it’s instead to demonstrate who is a part of the community, and who is perceived to be outside of it.  In this case, the one who doesn’t fit in, is also the one who eliminates the threat.

And thus Daryl Dixon storms onto the scene in a whirl of cursing and bad manners.  He’s full of anger, violent.  But conversely, he also comes bearing food.  He’s a provider.  But he’s more than that, too.  His method of killing is quick and silent, efficient.  He is all of these things, but also _more_ than all of these things.  He just doesn’t know it yet.

Lori seems fragile, vindictive, two-faced.  But her road hasn’t been easy, either, and I don’t know that it’s ever fully acknowledged how much she has gone through.

Carl is young and innocent.  Playing with Sophia and catching frogs.  Full of faith in his father.  He says “Nothing’s killed him yet,” and he fully believes that Rick will make it back from Atlanta.  He’s bright-eyed and chubby cheeked, and as of yet, relatively unmarred by the Turn.

From the moment we meet Andrea, she’s putting on a front of being tougher and meaner than she really is.  She’s not being who she _was,_ she is perhaps one of the only people here who is trying on who she _wants_ to be.  Strong.  Capable.  That’s why she confronts Rick in the moment of their meeting.  Why she confronts Ed and stands up for Carol.  Andrea is the woman who stands up, even if she’s shaking inside while she does it.

Shane is Rick’s best friend.  He’s the one who got Lori and Carl out of the city and has kept them safe.  He’s one of the men who keep the camp safe.  And in large part, he _IS,_ or at least, _has been_ the law.   But we know that Shane has also had to make hard choices.  He lied to Lori about Rick, because he felt like he had to.  And yet… on the night of Rick’s return, we see Shane perched on the roof of the RV, with his eyes locked on the tent where Rick lies sleeping with his family.  Above them all, a storm rumbles ominously, foretelling, perhaps, the tumult that lives inside of Shane.

He’s trying, so hard, to maintain the man that he was, the officer of the law, the friend, the hero.  But he’s slipping.  Something is coming, just as surely as the oncoming storm.  And we see the first glimpse of that when Shane nearly beats Ed to death.  His violence is controlled, but only barely, and only for the moment.  Shane embodies the hard decisions.  The choices we never want to make.  The choices we hope we’d _never_ make. 

We see this when he appeals to Rick to stay.  To leave Merle Dixon behind.  He tells Rick what a terrible person Merle is, and that Merle would never do the same for someone.  Rick replies by saying “What he would or wouldn’t do doesn’t interest me.”  And that’s because Rick has his own character to maintain.  He’s the HERO, remember?

But Shane knows.  Shane used to be that way, too.  He knows that sometimes being the HERO doesn’t work, and that eventually Rick will have to make terrible decisions.  But Shane is all about the choice, the difficult decision.  And so before Rick leaves for Atlanta with T-Dog, Daryl, and Glenn, Shane gives Rick what little ammunition he has, and remarks significantly “Four men, four rounds.  What are the odds, huh?”  Four rounds.  Four difficult choices.  Shane gives them over to Rick.

But in order to fulfill this mission, Rick once again requires a guide.  And so he turns to Glenn.  Glenn, who heralded the group’s return with the alarm of a bright red sports car.  Glenn, who had his wheels taken away by the group for their own needs.  Glenn, who is already sacrificing so much for all of them.  Glenn, who puts their needs ahead of his own.  Who puts his own life on the line every single time he guides the others into the jaws of death and back again. 

Rick appeals to Glenn, saying “You know the way, you’ve been there before.”  And Glenn agrees, because he hasn’t begun to think of himself as anything more than that, yet.  But eventually, he will.  Eventually, Glenn will realize that he doesn’t owe his life for the sake of another’s journey.  He also has his own choices to make.

And so, just like words aren’t enough to describe the horror of the end of the world, these first impressions aren’t enough for us to know what lies at the hearts of the characters.  They are so much more than we know, so much more than even _they_ know.  Right now, they’re shadows.


	4. 1x04: Seeing, and Not Seeing

 

 

Episode 1x04 is all about what we see, what we don’t see, and what we _think_ we see.

The episode begins with two sisters—Andrea and Amy—who are so similar in some ways, and yet so very different.  They argue about the intricacies of fishing, and knot tying, and the proper use of lures.  But the discussion is so much more than that.  It’s about their father, a man held in high regard by both women, and the way he cared for each of them.  He could SEE them, and what they needed from him.  And so he imparted different lessons to each daughter, to satisfy the different values they held.  Both of the styles he taught them work—we see that—but they serve different purposes.  He saw that they had different paths, and he did his best to give them what they needed to make sure they led fulfilling lives.  Here, at the end of the world, both of his daughters remember those lessons.

Above the quarry, perched on atop the RV, Dale watches over the two of them, also like a father.  And like a father, he SEES them.  In fact, he sees a lot.  Sometimes, he sees too much.

Jim, also, has the power of sight.  We see him digging, but we don’t know why.  The answer, of course is that Jim is the unlucky soul who has been cursed with a terrible foresight.  He’s a prophet, if you will, and he predicts the group’s tragedy before it happens.  As the group is torn apart by the ravages of the Walking Dead, we see Jim, disturbed, and traumatized, murmur with realization, “I remember my dream now.  Why I dug the holes.”

Daryl, too, has the power of sight.  He has the ability to track people, through cities and forests, even amidst the apocalypse, and it’s because he pays attention.  He SEES things that the others can’t, or won’t.  He recognizes the details for their importance, while the others might dismiss them as insignificant.  That is one of Daryl’s gifts.  He knows that it’s sometimes the little things, the over-looked details, that are the _most_ important.

But WE see, too.  We are given the gift of understanding.  We see that Dale likes to measure time, that he clings to what he can of the old world.  We know that rationality is important to him. 

We are shown Rick and Daryl as very different men who tangle in a series of confrontations during these first episodes.  But we can SEE beyond that.  We can see that they also work well naturally together, in tandem.  That they share common values even if their methods are different.  We can SEE that they are really very similar, even if they are still in the process of changing.

And we also see Rick as the HERO.  We see how important this aspect of his character is.  It’s so important that we see both Glenn _and_ Rick risk their lives in order to hold onto it.  Of course, they cannot grasp his heroism, so instead they pull his sheriff’s hat from the masses of the dead, and they hold onto it.  As a symbol, they know how important it is.  It is law and order.  It is morality.  It is Rick’s good conscience.  It’s also fragile.  And losable.  We see, even this early on, that Rick’s heroism is not a guarantee, and we cannot take it for granted.

But even with all of this SEEing happening, there’s still room for what we don’t see.

We don’t see Amy’s end coming, though perhaps we should.  She dies on her birthday.  The world is full of cruel ironies.

We also don’t see the Walkers overrunning the camp, any more than the group themselves did.  We are as caught off guard as the victims themselves.  And we finally realize what is happening when it is already too late.  We are just like Rick and the others, returning with strength and weapons, but too late to save everyone.  Too late.

We can’t change what we don’t see, and the characters can’t avoid those fates either.

But now we must discuss what we _think_ we see.

We THINK we see Glenn and Daryl attacked by vicious men, maybe even violent criminals.  Men who are willing to risk the life of one of their own in order to secure weapons.  Men who would torture Glenn, and murder him.  Men who are only out for themselves.

But we’re wrong.  These men show us that everyone has a choice to make.  And their choices give us hope.  Their choices show us that there is still some goodness left in people.  We thought we saw one thing, but we were very wrong.  These men are the opposite of self-serving.  And as an audience, we breathe a sigh of relief that Rick and his group realized their mistake in time to avoid bloodshed, because these men prove there is still light in the world, there is still hope.

Even Daryl takes advantage of what people THINK they see.  He takes Merle’s hand (gathered carefully, tenderly, from an act of care) and uses it to terrify the young man who they captured, implying that he chopped it off the last man who crossed him, and threatening to do the same.  Did Daryl do this?  No.  Of course not.  But Miguel doesn’t know that.  Miguel THINKS that Daryl is violent and ruthless, and that he isn’t afraid to shed some blood.  But this action is doubly misleading, because WE know that Daryl only did this out of his desire to help Glenn.  Again, even his shows of violence are just that—a show.  One of Daryl’s curses is that he sometimes cares _too much._

 

But the biggest ruse of the episode is this: that we agree with T-Dog when he says “Guess the world changed.”

But the truth is that Guillermo was right when he said “No.  It’s the same as it ever was.”

 


	5. 1x05: Holding On and Letting Go

 

 

 

One of the reasons The Walking Dead is such an amazing show is because it forces us to think.  And not just contemplate the apocalypse, or survival.  I mean, it makes us think the big questions.  Like: who are we?  What defines us?  What actually matters to us?  What are we willing to do?  What are we capable of?  We probably have these thoughts occasionally anyway, but with the Walking Dead, it’s unavoidable.

Episode 1x05 is all about holding on, and letting go.  Holding onto our loved ones, our hope, our humanity, ourselves.  And letting go—of the people we love, our illusions, our control, the world as we knew it.

The episode opens with Rick trying to contact Morgan on the walkie.  It’s not just because Rick is a good guy, and he feels like he owes Morgan.  This tentative line of communication also symbolizes Rick’s connection to his past self, and the hope that he can still make a difference, that he can still be a good man and do the right thing.  In the end, though, there is no answer.

We see a constant struggle in this episode, between holding on and letting go of ourselves.  It’s painful to watch.

We see Shane start to lose it, but each time he manages to hold himself back.  He’s tipping, but he’s not quite gone yet.  Lori has started to subtly play Rick and Shane against each other, and as we all know, this will have devastating effects.  We get the first taste of this in the woods, when we see Shane line Rick up in his sights and contemplate pulling the trigger.  It doesn’t last long, but it happens.  He pulls himself back.  But the damage is already done.  He’s already thought about it.  And what’s more—Dale saw it happen. 

We see a new side to Carol in this episode, too.  We see her take the responsibility of her dead husband upon herself.  Instead of allowing Daryl to put a pick through his brain, she does it.  Over, and over, and over again.  She’s letting go.  Of him.  And her pain and rage, and all of the times she felt afraid of him.  She’s letting go of the man who abused her, and she’s letting go of the person she was who endured it.  Again, it’s significant that there was a witness—Daryl saw it happen.

Even Jenner, at the CDC, who we just barely meet, is struggling between hanging on to the world and his duty, and letting it go and killing himself.  It’s only the arrival of Rick’s group at the end of the episode that postpones the decision.  And even then, it was Rick’s determination to hold on to his hope and his faith that led he and his group to the CDC, that prompted Rick to shout and beg entrance for his people.  Rick refuses to let go.  He’s promised to hold on for as long as he can.

I’ve said before that it’s our choices that define us, and this episode is a perfect example of that.

In one of the saddest sequences thus far in the series, we see Andrea watching over the body of her younger sister Amy.  Amy is dead, of course, having been killed on her birthday by a Walker.  Andrea knows that her sister is dead.  But she hovers over the body, still, traumatized but protective.  The group thinks that she’s having trouble letting go.  That she’s unwilling to do it.  But that’s not the case.  Andrea has been patiently waiting, unwilling to be moved from her sister’s body until she reanimates.  After she does, we see Andrea talk to her, confess, and apologize, and say her goodbye, before she shoots Amy in the head.  It’s not that Andrea couldn’t let go.  It’s that she was only willing to do so on her own terms.  In a world where so much is brutal and uncertain, Andrea wasn’t willing to let anyone take her goodbye from her.

And the others, they try so hard to hold onto their humanity, to emphasize the difference between themselves and the Walking Dead. 

When the group discovers Jim has been bitten, they have to decide what to do with one of their own who _will_ turn, but hasn’t yet.  Daryl wanted to kill Jim, to end it quickly, but Rick pulled a gun and said “We don’t kill the living.”

Daryl of course can see through Rick’s need to be the HERO, and says “Funny, coming from a man who just put a gun to my head.”  The two of them are more similar than they realize. 

But this clash brings up the question—how _do_ you treat a human who is also a walking time bomb?  A sure threat?  How are they different from the Walkers?  How are they different from us?  Later, of course, Jim offers them a way to avoid this conundrum, by taking the decision away from them.  They honor his wishes, of course, when they leave him.  And we see them let go of the control, let go of Jim.  And we see him hold onto his agency for just a bit longer, before he lets go of the world.

But the question of difference hasn’t been resolved. 

Glenn vehemently protests that _their dead_ are different from the Walkers.  He won’t allow Daryl and Morales to burn them.  He reacts more strongly to this than he has to anything else, even his own life being put in danger.  Here, Glenn is drawing the line.  He believes that if the distinction is lost, if they start viewing all the dead bodies in the same way, then they will lose a piece of themselves.  He’s not ready to do that, yet.

And Lori is there to back up his case, saying “We need time to mourn, and we need to bury our dead.  It’s what people do.”  Here, she’s saying that even if the world has changed, _people_ haven’t.  They still need the same things.

And so we have our potential heroes here, struggling, and trying to figure things out.  They want to hold on to the world as they knew it.  They want to hold onto their righteousness and their hope, and their humanity.  They want to hold onto the people that they were.

But as Jim said, in the midst of his fever, “It’s not about what you want.  That sound you hear is God laughing while you make plans.”


	6. 1x06: Chances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dealers of chance...

 

 

Episode 1x06 is all about the chances we take and the chances we’re given. 

I mentioned before that Shane is the one who makes the hard decisions.  He is.  But his decisions are also the ones that deal out chances.  So far he’s been portrayed as ruthless and unstable, but he is more than that.  He has held the fate of many in his hands.  In fact, it’s Shane’s actions and his determination to give people chances that sets the stage for the entire show.

In the beginning of the episode, we see Shane remember the end of the world as he knew it.  Unlike Rick, he is a _witness_ to this failure, to this destruction.  He witnesses it and he is also a part of it.  One of the reasons it is so easy for Rick to maintain his status as the HERO is because he never had to be part of this initial failure.

But some of the first things we are shown of Shane are the terrible circumstances he finds himself in.  He sees the hospital overrun by walkers, and the patients in the hospital murdered by the dead and the living.  He’s desperate to save Rick, but he also understands his own limits.  He has a terrible decision to make.  He knows that he can’t physically get Rick out of the hospital, but he doesn’t give up on him either.  What he _can_ do is give him a chance.  And so he does.  And by doing so, he also gives Lori and Carl a chance. 

Later, when Lori confronts Shane about the lie, about Rick being dead, he says that he had to think of her and Carl.  “If you thought for one second that he was still alive, would you have come?  So I saved your life!”  Yes, that’s true.  But now Shane feels like he’s entitled to something because of those chances.  He doesn’t give chances for free.  He enjoys having people’s fates lie in his hands.  He’s comfortable making those decisions, dealing out life and death, or at least playing with the odds. 

But Shane is losing his grip on reality. He has allowed this power to go to his head.  And so when Lori refuses to give him what he wants, he attacks and attempts to rape her.

Ironically, Rick, naïve and relieved at the moment of his own safety, comes to bed later, to a weeping Lori and says “We don’t have to be afraid anymore.  We’re safe here.”  Rick thinks the threat is outside, amidst the Walkers.  But Lori and WE know that isn’t true at all.  The greatest danger lives inside each and every one of the living.  In their ability to make choices.  The Walkers are predictable.  The living are not.

We see this same naïve message conveyed by Jenner as well, when he lets them in and says: “You all look harmless enough.  Except you,” he says to Carl jokingly.  “I’m gonna have to keep my eye on you.”  It’s a joke.  He doesn’t really believe it.  But it’s a brilliant piece of foreshadowing because WE all know that he’s right.  Carl is the heir of this new world, and he’s just as dangerous.

 

 

 

That night, all the survivors shower.  They’re baptized again, into a new life, into another chance at survival. 

And they all settle down and have a feast.  With their savior.  The night before the end, though they do not know it yet.  It’s the last supper.

 

 

 

Later, Rick drunkenly thanks Jenner for saving them, for his hospitality.  He confesses that he thought they were all going to die, but he would never allow himself to say it before.

At the CDC, after the loss of her sister, Andrea says that everything is gone.  Conversely, Dale sees the chance for a new start.

We see the same conversation happen metaphorically when Jenner shows them the brain of TS-19.  The light of synapses dying.  Then the brain goes dark with death.  After a while, new lights begin to fire.  Red lights.  Different synapses.  Is life gone, or is it just a new kind?

Jenner lists off many different things that could cause it.  Finally, though, Jackie says “Or the wrath of God.”

Jenner finally concedes, “There is that.”

 

 

 

 

This conversation continues.  It goes on and on, back and forth amongst the characters.  Jenner sees the end as a release.  Jackie sees it as a chance to get to a better place.  The others fight to survive.  They are willing to take their chances with life, for life.

And so Rick pleads with Jenner to give them a chance.  He says “I had to keep hope alive, didn’t I?” Even when he was full of doubt and fear.

Jenner replies “There is no hope, there never was.”

Rick responds with a statement that illustrates his entire worldview.  He says “There is always hope.”  And then, “Your wife didn’t have a choice.  You do.  That’s all we want.  A chance.”

And so Jenner is like Shane in this way—he is a dealer of chances.  And so he does his best to give them a chance.  Jackie stays with him, and Andrea does too.  But Dale goes back for her.  He says that if she stays, he will too.  She condemns him for emotionally blackmailing her, for taking her choice away.  But he didn’t do that.  It’s just that Andrea wasn’t willing to deal with his choice any more than he was willing to deal with hers.  Neither one knows how to let the other go.  And so she leaves to save his life.  She thinks that she has given him another chance, but he thinks that he has given her one instead.  Both of them are right.  Neither one of them quite realizes yet that their decisions will ripple through the rest.

The others are upstairs, hacking desperately at the glass, trying to find a way out of their cage, trying to save their own lives, trying to give themselves and each other _one more chance._

But Carol is the one who pulls out the grenade.  Carol is the one who found it and held onto it, _just in case._   Carol is the one who does, and will continue to, give them all chance after chance.  She doesn’t know how to own it yet, but that’s who she is.

**Author's Note:**

> I would love to hear what you all have to think! Also, don't be afraid to stalk my tumblr: realhunterswearplaid


End file.
